Last week, the commission voted to seek legal opinion about Arkansas’ new voter-identification law that allows voters at polling locations who do not have valid legal identification to vote provisionally but then present a legal ID by noon on the Monday after the election. The law provides little clarity about absentee voters who do not present identification.

Questions regarding the issue arose recently in Craighead County, where the law caused a problem in the state Senate race, leaving the county’s election commission unsure how to count roughly 70 absentee ballots that lacked identification. After receiving conflicting advice from state authorities, the commission eventually decided to consider those ballots provisional.

Attorney General Dustin McDaniel this week said in an advisory opinion that he found nothing in the new law that allows for a cure period for absentee voters who fail to submit identification with their ballot.

Election Commission Chairman Lee Webb said after reading McDaniel’s opinion, the commission would follow his advice.

“We wanted clarification and he’s siding with what the law states,” Webb said. “That’s the only opinion that holds credence. When you get the AG’s opinion, it means he’s willing to take it to court and we are 100 percent on board with that.”

Webb cited the possibility of close races in the May primary and the need for an accurate opinion as the purpose of the request, noting Pulaski County took the same action last week for the same purpose.

“The larger counties, like Sebastian and Pulaski, we try to stay up to speed with all of that stuff, but a lot of the smaller counties rely solely on the opinion of the Secretary of State,” Webb said. “We’re coming up on an election and we wouldn’t want a lawsuit. We just wanted to wanted to have timely, accurate information.”

Webb said voters intending to file an early absentee ballot must include legal identification with their absentee ballot.